


10 Years On The Ground

by crystalkei



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalkei/pseuds/crystalkei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby looking back at how Clarke has grown up, how she’s never grown back to being close to her daughter, and how she pretty much tries to blame everything on that flop Bellamy and his horrible hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	10 Years On The Ground

They’ve been on the ground 10 years now. Well, of course the kids had been down just a little longer. But at this point, they could probably let go of that inch of ground they liked to hold over everyone else. Abby hoped they’d let go of it but if an argument erupted it was likely that one of them would bring it up, usually Bellamy Blake.

Never mind that he basically volunteered to come on down early, but she’d since lost any argument about that. Or really any argument she tried to fight with that man. Even if Abby had a point worth winning over, Clarke’s glare would put an end to the discussion. 

She wondered if this was how it felt getting old, losing your status and handing over the reigns to a new group. Power wasn’t something Abby had ever coveted. It always seemed to corrupt and bring out the worst in people. Sure, sitting on the council came with a measure of control and influence but she’d always tried to do the right thing. She hoped. But all those years ago when they’d hit the ground, she very quickly found that power was indeed not worth having but also very difficult to let go of. Especially when the person usurping the power had come from your very own womb.   
  
Or when that child seemed so very different from the way you remembered her. That, again, she liked to blame on previously mentioned force of nature and difficult man, Bellamy Blake. She recognized all these years later that she was probably giving him too much credit and not giving her own daughter enough. But it was so much easier to pretend Clarke would have been the same reserved and bright teenager. Jake had told her a streak of defiance for the good cause ran through Clarke but Abby didn’t believe it.   
  
It was hard watching your child grow up but it was worse knowing you’d made it all the more difficult. Abby had wished and prayed that Clarke would rely on her more. Ask her for help, talk to her more, just need her in some way. But it was only in small catches of moments that she was allowed in. Since Abby had shown up on the ground she saw her daughter go to other people. Her friends. And more specifically, him.   
  
With his physicality taking up all the space in the room, with the way he instantly seemed like a dangerous person, Jesus, even his hair made her cringe.   
  
She remembered his mother. She didn’t remember all the people they’d voted to float but she remembered his mother. She remembered because she felt it was somehow her fault that this woman had worked around the system. Since Abby had become the senior medical doctor, she’d taken it upon herself to stop the senseless mistakes. No one needed to suffer a second pregnancy. They didn’t need to put these women to death if she could just fix it before it ever happened. She’d even gone so far as to suggest hysterectomies after each delivery. But the council had turned her down. Said it would take too much effort and waste medical supplies.   
  
Of course, Aurora Blake’s second pregnancy was long before Abby had been in charge of the department, but still, it irked her that the woman had gotten around the checks and balances in place. She really couldn’t understand why anyone would do it in the first place.

So sure, she could admit that right off the bat she didn’t like Bellamy just because of whom he belonged to. Then he’d shot the chancellor and her first encounter with him had been him covered in blood, covered in blood and fighting but apparently not hard enough to keep her daughter safe. Some leader he was.

It wasn’t until later she’d learned it was Bellamy’s idea to remove the bracelets. Clarke had already forgiven him for that but Abby was sure she could hold that against him for at least 10 years. Here it was 10 years and she did still feel angry about it. 

But all the things she hated about him, and there were many more, her heart did clench just a little seeing him hold her grandchild. The way he was so gentle, despite the fact that she’d seen those hands crush into people, kill others, he held the baby so naturally.

Back to the list though, all the things she still held against him. His insolence, the way he’d never listened to Kane or her, he barely spared Jaha a glance which felt supremely disrespectful considering he’d pardoned the little shit. Clarke always reminded her that Bellamy had lost everything to the type of people that Kane and Jaha were. His mother and his sister in the skybox and even when he tried to comply on the ground he was never given any credit for it, she’d repeat over and over. Bellamy was useful, he was smart and intuitive and skilled. But Abby didn’t want to think about that. 

She’d sure as hell remember the way her daughter started sleeping in his tent, even before they were really sleeping together. If Abby tried to have some kind of conversation that Clarke didn’t want to be having, she’d bolt. She’d be there, letting someone else talk her through the things that Abby desperately wanted to be a part of.

And then there was the fact that he clearly stole her away. Seven years ago he’d taken her away physically. There’d been a schism in the group. For three years the council had been trying to hold everyone together. It seemed the safest way. They’d appeased the kids, they’d put Clarke and Bellamy and even Raven on the council. But after years of fighting over smaller issues, schedules and supplies and even when they’d tried to reverse the population laws and suggest that people should be held to having at least two children to maintain a good growth in community, okay so that proposal definitely tipped the scales. 

The way Clarke and Bellamy had jumped out of their seats and leaned over the table in sync was terrifying for a few of the council members. But Abby had seen it before. Directed at her. Although maybe not with such force. Shouts of bodily autonomy from Clarke and arguments of controlling people’s decisions never working on the Ark from Bellamy, well, that was the final straw. Over the next few weeks it was a terrible fight over supplies and Abby tried so hard to mend the cracks. But it was useless. About a third of the population had followed Clarke and Bellamy. Not just kids, either.

Very rarely Clarke shared deep, dark feelings with Abby, but she’d told her once about how she hated the drop ship site. The death, the pain, those early days on earth, Abby couldn’t imagine all the trauma that place brought for her daughter. So when Clarke and Bellamy set up their city center there, Abby knew there was no fixing what was broken. She’d rather be there than be near her mother.

This second settlement was thriving though. With Bellamy doing the protecting and Clarke doing the healing and both shouldering the hard decisions and planning. There was running water (they had the advantage of a smaller population and Raven to speed that process) and there were food stores that were much more impressive than Camp Jaha’s. Just a few years before there’d been a terrible accident and they were restocked and resupplied by the kids. Didn’t even put a dent in their stocks. Every little home had a garden and they were even trying their hand at some kind of sheep for wool. 

Occasionally the groups got together. Usually for Unity Day and other holidays and there was travel and commerce between the two settlements.

And Clarke had called Abby before. It was usually Bellamy that actually came for Abby. The time there’d been a sick child, too small for Clarke to really feel confident that she could cure, but too sick to transport to Camp Jaha. So he came, impatiently, it turned out it was Bellamy’s nephew, so of course he was panicked. But Abby knew that despite all his bravado, losing anyone he was supposed to shield from the scary world was a blow to him. And then there was the time they’d both dragged a man all the way to Abby, she could see in Clarke’s eyes that she was out of her depth with the injured patient. 

So sure, Clarke still needed her from time to time, but it was nothing like when she’d been a tiny baby, like the one she’d just delivered. When Abby found out, it was a shock, she wondered if perhaps the two would never have children, she even hoped off and on that maybe they’d moved on to other people. But she knew it was a vain dream. No, she was stuck with that idiot.    
  
Deep in the process of post delivery “clean up” she didn’t notice the way Bellamy had stuck close to the tiny new life. But now that she was standing back, she saw the tenderness in him and Abby very suddenly felt horrible for 10 years of anger directed at the man.   
  
“Okay, Clarke, honey,” Abby said a hand on her forehead to check her temperature. “You should try and sleep.”  
  
Clarke nodded. “I will, mom, but god, I am so hungry.” Abby smiled.   
  
“Octavia’s bringing something right now,” Bellamy said frantically, all of a sudden at the opposite side of Clarke, baby still swaddled in his arms. “I remember she said she was starving when she delivered Frank.”  
  
“It’s very common,” Abby added. She might be feeling softer towards him but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to push back a little.   
  
“Do you want her?” Bellamy asked Clarke, gesturing to the bundle of sleeping child. Clarke shook her head quickly but smiled at him fondly.

“I’m feeling a little weak, I’m afraid I’d drop her, let me get some food in me.”  He nodded back and turned to Abby now.

“How hard are you gonna hit me if I call you grandma right now?”   
  
Never mind any of the bad things she was gonna let go. She didn’t want to be a grandma. It felt old. It made her feel irrelevant. And this smug asshole knew it. Okay, so they’d never get along perfectly. Ever. But she could be a little nicer.   
  
“Let me hold the baby,” she demanded with a stern look. But she could see he was too happy to be affected at all by her typical glares. He’d really never been shamed by her looks of disapproval, but today he didn’t even pretend. Bellamy carefully passed the infant into her arms. He leaned over Clarke and whispered something Abby couldn’t make out and then turned back to Abby.   
  
“I’m going to go see what’s taking Octavia so long,” he said before heading out of the room.

Abby stared at the sweet face, all pink and scrunched. Apparently there’d been weeks of heated discussion of what to name her so she was still nameless. She leaned over and breathed her in. Babies had some kind of smell that was distinct and impossible to replicate. Abby tried not to cry thinking of how she’d held Clarke this way so many years ago. Reaching for Jake’s ring around her neck, she sighed, it usually made her feel closer to him but it didn’t do that today. Today it felt like a weight around her throat. 

“Clarke?” she asked. “Clarke, I’m sorry about your father.”  
  
“Mom, you must have apologized a hundred times, I honestly get tired of hearing it,” Clarke replied, an edge to her voice.

“I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, but I’m sorry anyways. I’m sorry it drove a wedge between us beyond just losing him.” Abby felt tears stream down her face. 

“Mom,” Clarke started but Abby shook her head.   
  
“No, I’m serious. I’ve been blaming Bellamy all these years, but it was me. I can keep blaming Bellamy for plenty of things but I’m the reason you didn’t need me.”   
  
“I always needed you,” Clarke managed, she was crying as well. Probably not a good idea to have this conversation now when Clarke would be so fragile.   
  
“Yes, but you didn’t trust me, so you trusted someone else, you trusted him. And it’s been good that you did. You didn’t let the wrong person hold your trust this time.” Abby sniffed and wiped her eyes with her free hand. She walked over to the bassinet and placed the baby in it. Then she fiddled with her necklace, pulling the ring off the chain and walking back to Clarke.   
  
“Give this to Bellamy,” she said putting the ring in Clarke’s hand. Clarke’s eyebrows lowered and she looked at her unsteady.  
  
“We aren’t married, and Mom, this is important to you,” Clarke argued. 

“You’re basically married and it doesn’t bring me comfort anymore.” She walked back to retrieve the baby. “Can I come and see her often? Will you let me?”  
  
“Of course,” Clarke replied.   
  
“That’ll do then, I just want to be close to you again.” She smiled at Clarke. “I’ll even try to be nice to your daddy,” she said to the sleeping infant.

“Finally,” Bellamy said rushing back into the room unaware of the conversation. He held a plate heavy with probably every food for the season they had.

“I’m going to leave you kids,” Abby said, handing off the baby to Bellamy. 

“You’re not going home, right, Mom?” Clarke asked meekly.   
  
“No, sweetie, I’ll stick around a while. I’m just going to bed.”

Clarke nodded and turned back to the food. Bellamy sat wedged next to her now, his knees up, and the baby nestled there so Clarke could see her, too.

It was going to be better now. Abby knew it.

 


End file.
